Snapdeal has launched a new Cash@Home facility, under which it is offering to deliver Rs. 2,000 cash to users' homes. The new Snapdeal Cash@Home facility is available only to users of the company's app, and is currently live in only Gurugram and Bengaluru. You will have to pay a Re. 1 convenience fee, either via Freecharge or using your debit card, for using Snapdeal's cash home delivery service.
(Also see: How to Transfer Money From FreeCharge Wallet to Bank Account)
Using the Cash@Home cash delivery service is quite easy - when you install the Snapdeal app, it will use location data to check if cash whether available in your area. According to Snapdeal, if cash if available, you'll get a push notification and an SMS notification, taking you to the order page.
Under the Cash@Home facility, a Snapdeal logistics executive arrives at your house the next day with a POS machine, and you can swipe your card and get your cash. There is a Rs. 2,000 per day limit on the booking, and you don't have to order anything else.
According to Snapdeal, the cash home delivery facility is a "goodwill gesture" and the money comes from the cash it receives as CoD. A cynic would point out that this also frees up the company from having to deposit the cash in its own bank account, as it uses customers to turn its cash into a digital form. And, since the offer is only extended to app users, based around push notifications, it also helps ensure that people install the app, and keep it on their phones. That being said, for customers who are strapped for cash because of long ATM queues, Snapdeal's Cash@Home cash delivery facility is a pretty big boon to have available.
(Also see: Demonetisation Intent Is Good, but Needed More Research - Flipkart's Sachin Bansal)
"At Snapdeal, we aim to be the marketplace that seamlessly services every customer need," says Rohit Bansal, co-founder, Snapdeal. "As the country transitions to a more digitally enabled economy, we’ve launched a series of timely initiatives – from wallet and card on delivery, to extending FreeCharge partnerships to smoothen this transition. The launch of the cash on demand service is intended to further help our consumers tide over any cash crunch that they might face in addressing their daily needs.”
Snapdeal isn't the first tech company to offer a cash delivery service though. At the start of December, Tailmill - a Noida-based company that delivers groceries and uses algorithms to automatically build your shopping list - started to offer home delivery of cash, up to Rs. 1000, in partnership with flour seller TWF Flours.
Like Snapdeal, Tailmill was also recirculating the cash it collected through cash-on-delivery offers. Midway through December, Grofers jumped on the bandwagon offering a similar service in partnership with Yes Bank. This was offered to users across Mumbai, Gurugram, and Bengaluru.
However, unlike Snapdeal, in the case of Grofers, you also need to order groceries worth Rs. 2,000 to get cash delivered.
“Grofers, the on-demand e-commerce mobile and Web application, is opening up a new avenue for people to get cash delivered at home, by partnering with Yes Bank,” the bank had said in a mailed statement.
Yes Bank had also partnered with Ola to set up mobile ATMs earlier in the month.
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